Shnayim Yomi - Vayishlach - Chamishi - #5 - Rabbi David Tawil - Pure Intentions

Good morningish for in this aliyah we read the tragic story of how Yakov's daughter Dina is violated and how Yakov's children have to step in and to try to seek revenge for the nalah the abomination that was committed against their family. They go to very extreme tactics by killing out the entire city after the Brit. And by the end, Yakov and his sons struggle to understand whether these actions were appropriate. Yakov criticizes his children and they respond by saying, "Will we allow them to do such abominable acts to our family?" What might really be at the heart of the confrontation between Yakov and his children? Right before Yakov confronts his children, it says that they went around plundering the city, taking the spoils from what they had gathered after murdering the entire town. Perhaps this is what Yakov was upset about, not the fact that they stood up for their daughter. They had a duty to res to respect and honor their family and they were well within their right to go back and to and to kill the rest of the town. The problem was is they took the money also and that tainted their kavanote. It made it seem like to the other people that they were really in it to just plunder and take the money from the city instead of just um standing up for their family values. When a person goes and grabs from the money, then it makes their intentions seem very murky. We see this in migat on the flip side where the Jewish people attack their enemies on the day and they were allowed to take the money but the migila says that they never took any of the spoils. Why? because they wanted to show the people they were fighting a war on behalf of Hashem, not behalf on their pockets. And Yakov told his children, you shouldn't have taken the money. It was okay to defend Hashem and defend your honor, but not to take the money. We sometimes have to look into our and our intentions and to figure out why are we doing things. Are we doing it purely Shayim and are we making sure that others who interpret our actions are also looking at it shay? If we're doing anything that could potentially cloud the morality and the and the purity of what we're doing, then we would have to stay away from that so that people do not question our intentions and our moral compass. Have a great day.